


She's the Tear in My Heart

by Flavato_Forever



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Driving, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8810218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flavato_Forever/pseuds/Flavato_Forever
Summary: Happy finds out that Toby doesn't know how to drive stick and decides that she has to remedy that situation.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaimeekate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaimeekate/gifts).



> This one-shot is set directly after 3x09. Hope you like it, Jaimee!

Happy and Toby were the last people in the garage that evening. They’d both -- uncharacteristically -- offered to help clean up from dinner and, even after the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, they both lingered, unwilling to go home. Neither of them had fond memories of Thanksgiving; Toby didn’t want to be home alone, and Happy didn’t want to spend the evening playing cribbage with Cabe.

Their relationship was still in a rocky place; they were technically engaged, but Happy was also still technically married to Walter, if only for a few more days, until the divorce papers were processed. And they’d gotten so swept up in the immigration-fooling and the false pregnancy that they’d never exactly talked about the fact that Happy had been married to Walter since before she and Toby had even met.

In light of this, an awkwardness feel over the garage once everyone else had left. Toby typed away at his keyboard while Happy fiddled with her tools. She wasn’t really in the mood to work on anything.

“Hey Doc,” she said, breaking the tense silence.

“What’s up?”

“Do you really not know how to drive stick?”

Toby looked up from his computer quizzically. “What?”

“I heard you over the coms asking Paige about it today.”

“Oh. Well, no. I didn’t even get my license until after medical school, and by that point I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to teach me, so.”

“Well, you know, I could teach you. If you wanted.”

Toby raised his eyebrows. “Your truck’s automatic.”

“Yeah, but Tim’s car isn’t.” Happy walked over to the kitchen table and picked up Tim’s keys, which were still there, as he had gone home with Paige. “He won’t mind us borrowing it. What do you say?”

Toby’s pride bristled a little bit at the thought of Happy’s being close enough to Tim to just grab his keys, but he recognized her offer as an attempt to reach out.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

They both got up in unison and walked out of the garage side-by-side. They kept an odd distance in between themselves, a _platonic_ sort of distance, it occurred to Toby as they got outside. It was how far apart they might have been two years ago, back when Happy still vehemently turned down all of his advances.

He considered reaching out and grabbing her hand, but she was holding Tim’s keys, and besides, he was worried she might punch him again. His shoulder was still sore from her reaction to his kiss attempt from the week before.

Tim’s car was parked at the far end of the parking lot beside their building, one of four or five cars still there at the late hour. Toby had never actually been in it; they always took a government-issued SUV on cases. It was a pretty recent Acura model, the paint still shiny and black. When they got close, Toby saw that the inside had been kept pristine; there was no clutter in sight, unlike his own car, whose floor was peppered with fast-food wrappers and dirty clothes.

Happy slid into the passenger seat, and Toby got in the other side. Immediately he was thrown off by the third pedal at his feet; it looked so out of place to him, after a lifetime of driving automatic.

He looked at Happy. “Okay, um, what do I do first?”

She smiled. “Turn it on.”

“Right, right.”

Toby turned the key in the ignition, expecting the sound of the engine’s starting to be different than his car’s, but it was identical.

“Now put your foot on the clutch.”

Toby complied.

They continued like that, Happy coaching him gently as they made their way around the block. At first, Toby stalled the car every thirty feet or so, but he eventually got into the rhythm of changing gears.

For their first few laps around the block, Happy said nothing other than instructions. When Toby got bored of seeing the garage from different angles and he turned onto a different road, she fell silent.

Suddenly, when they were a solid mile and a half from the garage, the quiet hum of the engine stopped. Toby toed the gas, but the car didn’t accelerate.

“Uh oh,” Toby said quietly. He glanced at Happy, who was rolling her eyes.

“Let me guess. You ran out of gas.”

Toby looked down at the dashboard and, sure enough, the gas gauge was pointing ominously towards E.

“Oh.”

As Toby guided the now-coasting car over to the side of the road, Happy nodded knowingly. “Were you not looking at the gas gauge?”

“I was focusing on not stalling the car. Were _you_ not looking at the gas gauge?”

“I can’t see it from here.”

“Oh, right. I forget how short you are sometimes.”

Happy responded with a quick punch to his shoulder.

“ _Ow_.”

“Well, come on then. We’re going to have to get out and walk for gas.” Happy pushed the door open and started climbing out. Toby followed suit.

“Wait, can’t we just call triple-A?”

“Do you have triple-A?” They were talking now over the top of the car, Happy’s head barely visible, despite the fact she was standing on the curb.

“No, but Tim does.”

“It doesn’t work like that. It’s by person, not by car.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes, you doofus. Now come on. I think there’s a gas station a few blocks east of here. What are the odds Tim has a gas can in his trunk?”

* * *

The odds, it turned out, were good, and soon Happy and Toby were at a Chevron two blocks from Tim’s car, armed with a red five-gallon gas can and a twenty-dollar bill. It was late enough that the station was basically deserted for the night, so it didn’t take long for Toby to pay the clerk and Happy to pump the gas.

As they started walking back, Toby bumped his shoulder into Happy’s in lieu of taking her hand, which was holding the gas can. A second later, she bumped him back, making him smile.

“You could’ve told me, you know,” he said quietly.

“Told you what?”

“That you were married to Walter. I would’ve understood.”

“It’s illegal.”

“Yeah, but that didn’t stop me from helping you guys fool CIS, did it?”

“You just did that because you thought I was pregnant.”

“No, I did it because Walter’s my friend and I didn’t want him to get deported. I would’ve done the same thing before we started dating.”

“Really?”

“Of course. You think I want to go back to robbing banks? I have a pretty sweet deal set up here, with my government job. I would’ve fought for that. Plus, one of my coworkers is pretty cute.”

Happy smiled, not looking at him. “I’ll make sure to tell Sly what you think of him.”

They were silent for a minute before Toby continued.

“Really, Hap. I understand why you did what you did. I just wish… I wish you guys had told me sooner.”

“I know. It was just… When we got married, you and Sly weren’t even here yet. It was just me and Walter and Collins, and Collins and I fought all the time. Walter was the only thing holding us together. And then his visa was up, and I knew with him gone, I’d be back to working in chop shops. Getting married was just kind of the only option. And then I almost forgot about it, until you came along and started talking about getting married…”

She paused, and for a minute the only sound was their feet clicking on the sidewalk. Toby didn’t talk, letting her think before she continued.

“And by then Walter and I hadn’t mentioned it for so long, it just kind of became something that we didn’t talk about. Especially because we were working for the government. What would Cabe have done?”

Toby opened his mouth to respond, but Happy interrupted him.

“I know, I know, Cabe helped us fool CIS too. But I didn’t _know_ that he would. Walter had some pretty terrible stories about Cabe from when they knew each other before. I would’ve thought he’d report us immediately.” She sighed. “I don’t know. The whole marriage thing was just easier not to talk about it. And then suddenly you were proposing to me and I had to say no, and then I saw the look on your face and…”

Just then, they reached the car, and Toby turned to face Happy. In the dim lights of the street lamps, he saw tears welling in her eyes. He gently eased the gas can out of her hand, placed it on the ground, and pulled her against his chest. They stayed like that for a minute, until a patch of his shirt was damp with her tears, and then she turned her head to the side so her mouth was free to talk.

“I thought I’d ruined everything. That it was all over and you were going to hate me forever and one of us would eventually have to leave Scorpion because we couldn’t work together anymore and that I’d never see you again and I’d spend the rest of my life being sorry.”

“You really thought this through, huh?”

“Yeah, well, there were a lot of hours between when you proposed and when we got called onto that case.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You know I could never hate you. I wish you’d told me sooner. And I was mad, for a while. Maybe I still kind of am. But I never hated you for it. Even as you were running away from my proposal, I still loved you.”

“I’m sorry. Everything I did… It was just so stupid. I never meant for it to end up like it did.”

“I know.”

She turned her head up to look at him, eyes red, cheeks shiny and wet. He pressed a kiss to her forehead before saying, “I forgive you.”

She sniffled in response.

Toby cleared his throat. “Alright, what do you say we go on home?”

She smiled slightly. “That sounds good.”

“I think you might want to drive, though.”

Happy chuckled. “Yeah, that’s probably best.”

She pulled back, away from him. She grabbed his hand, giving it a single loving squeeze, before picking up the gas can and moving to start the car.


End file.
